The Node JS platform is one which is known for many things – not least the fact that its known to have the fastest run time of any programming language but, what lies ahead for this giant of programming?  In this article, we’ll take a look at how Node JS started, where it’s been and, most importantly, where it’s headed: 

A role model

Launched in 2009 by Californian, Ryan Dahl, Node Js is used by some major players including Netflix, NASA, eBay, Paypal, Trello and Uber.  The platform was designed to allow the development of super fast web services in Javascript, without the need for fiddly threading.  Instead, the system uses a streamlined model of event driven programming featuring callbacks to signal completion of a task. 

The real beauty of Node JS is in its simplicity but, while it may be simple, it’s anything but ordinary.  In fact, many firmly believe that front end improvement is, quite simply, impossible without the help of Node JS.  Despite the fact that new IT companies continue to pop up like wildflowers, Node JS is still considered to be superior – and a go-to for a huge number of businesses. To read further, have a look at top node js development companies.

Why is Node JS the cream of the crop?

There are a good few reasons for the enduring popularity of Node JS and, some of these are: 

On the face of it – Fans of Node JS like to sing the praises of the system’s seamless interface – the simple database coupled with the equivalent Node JS environment is a winner for many Node JS users. 

By proxy – Node JS’s arrangements for engineers and examiners allow for the set up of various administrations through the intermediary. 

Community support – In 2022, many engineers choose to get their support from their peers and, lots of these people state the superior quality of the Node JS support community.

What are Node JS’s core features?

This bit of tech is, of course, all about the features and, some of these are: 

ASYNC Hook – This is a main module which features an API in order to track asynchronous resources – ie, objects which have a callback.

Project Manager – This feature facilitates the package installation and, also, publishes the open source projects which are written within Node JS. 

NODE – This is a report which features diagnostic summaries regarding development and testing which are stored for troubleshooting and problem determination. 

NODE OPTION – This important feature is here to make sure that command lines can be implemented within the environment variable; ie a dependency which runs a code. 

While Node JS has many other bells and whistles, the above are the key features which get rave reviews from users. 

What’s next for Node JS ?

We all know that technology doesn’t stand still for long – and Node JS is no different.  Never one to rest on his laurels, in 2020, Ryan Dahl launched Deno – a runtime for TypeScript and JavaScript which, like Node JS, uses the V8 open source JavaScript engine.  Deno has a few important benefits, including: 

• Security – Deno has command line arguments which allow for the enabling and disabling of access to numerous security functionalities.
• TypeScript support – Deno offers full support for TypeScript which is fast becoming one of the most popular tech stacks. 
• Dependencies – Doing away with the need for modules and NPM, Deno deals with dependencies through the import of modules from Gitl-Hub, SkyPack and JsDelivr.

While there are those who feel that, logically, Deno will stealthily continue to evolve until a time when it will completely replace Node JS but, realistically, this is unlikely to happen.  Although Deno has some features which are considered superior to Node JS, it’s not a full replacement – and Node JS trumps Deno in certain areas, including: 

• Asynchronous I/O models in back end development
• Tried and tested and stable in terms of server side JavaScript development
• Larger and more superior support community

As you can see, it’s swings and roundabouts when trying to determine which is better with Node JS and Deno – and why should users have to choose? Instead, many feel that it will make more sense for the two systems to be combined in order to provide a bullet-proof, industry leading behemoth.  

“JavaScript has never been my favorite language – it’s just the most common language – and for that reason it is a useful way to express many ideas. I don’t consider TypeScript a separate language; its beauty is that it’s just marked up JavaScript. TypeScript allows one to build larger, more robust systems in JavaScript, and I’d say it’s my go-to language for small everyday tasks.  With Deno we are trying to remove a lot of the complexity inherent in transpiling TypeScript code down to JavaScript with the hope this will enable more people to utilize it”.  Ryan Dahl

Conclusion

These days, it’s pretty hard to find a major brand which is not yet on board with Node JS and, for this reason, it’s unlikely that it’s going anywhere soon.  The word ‘hybrid’ is bandied about with sheer abandon these days and, while it’s overused, there’s a reason for that.  In many different aspects of our work and personal lives, we’re discovering the benefits of combining the best bits of two factors to create an ideal and, I’m pretty sure that this is where Node JS is headed.  By taking the superior features of both Node JS and Deno and putting them together to create one all singing, all dancing platform, Ryan Dahl can ensure that his product is top of the pile for many years to come.  In the meantime, Ryan is back at it with new projects: 

“There’s a lot going on: We’re building bindings to the Hyper web server, which will provide HTTP/2, and likely be much faster than the current web server. We’re building “deno lsp”, which provides the Language Server Protocol so that VSCode (and other IDEs) can talk directly to Deno to get syntax highlighting, type checking, formatting, etc – expect the editing experience to improve dramatically over the next couple months”.  Ryan Dahl